My place for all things nerdy, from every walk of life. A large chunk of theatre reviews, opinion and many other nerdy things.

Tuesday, 3 October 2017

Why Elliott & Harper is the company I've been waiting for

I can never resist a good (bad) pun in a title. As the first production from Elliott & Harper opens its doors
for previews tonight, it’s worth pausing to think what this new production company
means and why indeed we need more like it. Something of a ‘power house’ company
formed of Marianne Elliott and Chris Harper. Both coming from the National
Theatre- as Director and Producer respectively- there’s a real understanding of
both the craft of theatre and the audiences that do- and don’t- come to it
there. And theatre made by and produced by theatre people, in the commercial realm.
That’s potentially very exciting.

Firstly, the act of two theatre people who really love
theatre, really understand theatre both from an audience point of view and an
artistic point of view. Secondly, one of the UK’s best directors striking out
on her own to make theatre on her own terms. Thirdly, and you bet it’s an important
factor, a woman artistic director. It’s all exciting, and has the potential, we
already know to produce exciting work. A company that is starting with a new
Simon Stephens play starring Anne-Marie Duff and Kenneth Cranham is obviously a
pretty strong start. When your second play is a radically re-imagined Company,
with Rosalie Craig in the starring role, and a small matter of Patti LuPone also
starring. Even in the most unforgiving critic’s eyes that’s a bold and strong
start.

Why then is Elliott & Harper both such a good idea and an
important one for theatre? Firstly, then theatre people making theatre. As
loathe as some critics are to admit it, we do have a lot of great theatre
happening in London and beyond (and can we pause to note that already Elliot&
Harper are working beyond London with their collaboration with West Yorkshire
playhouse, this gives me great hope for a regional outlook in the future) The London
fringes, subsidised sector and indeed a lot of regional work are brilliant,
daring and pushing boundaries and audiences to the limits. And that is
wonderful work. I love the West End, I love a big musical and a classic play. I
even firmly believe there’s a place for Mama Mia in this world, but what we
need is a balance. Theatre that challenges
audiences, gives something new, twists those classics but is also accessible to
casual and seasoned theatre goers alike.

And you know what, I think Elliott Harper are the ones to
brings us that. Theatre people who understand both theatre as a craft, and
audiences. That’s what our theatre needs an intelligent alliance at the head of
a production company, one that understands and wants to challenge but excite
audiences. The Harper in ‘Elliott&Harper’ will drive a production company that’s
business savvy, but also doesn’t lose sight of the- at the risk of sounding
artsy, and yes, a bit wanky- the art in theatre. We have a lot of business
savvy producers, and we have business savvy producers who do I’m sure care
about the work. But I fear a lot of them have lost touch with that. In a
difficult market, when a proven commodity or safe bet is easier it feels like ‘why?’
is a question only answered by ‘money’. We need money in theatre, we all know
that but a producer relationship with an artistic director that drives that
question ‘Why?’ with a more complicated answer is far better for us all in the theatrical
world. And having a director like Elliott then answering those questions for you
with the productions is possibly a recipe for theatrical gold in every sense.

Elliott’s directing work has always been both risk taking and
accessible. Proof that you don’t have to alienate an audience to challenge
them, that you can be bold to engage an audience not put them off. Proof also
that visuals and spectacle and turning theatre on its head work only when
engaged with the heart of the matter: human storytelling. The National, where
Elliott &Harper have both honed their craft, is as a rule good at this kind
of risk taking. Of pushing boundaries with form or taking a risk on the kinds
of stories told. Any of Elliott's ‘big hits’
could have ended in disaster, and in interviews she’s far too modest to say so,
but in other hands they likely would have. From the ‘let’s tell this children’s
story but with puppets, giant horse puppets’ to the Scottish fairy tale with a
floating princess and Tori Amos music, to the inside of an Autistic boy’s mind
to, yes, Angels crashing through ceilings. These were pushing theatrical boundaries
in one way or another. But in their final execution were so well put together
that it becomes almost too easy to forget that element. As a personal example,
the most vicious argument I had with my PhD supervisor was about War Horse as
an innovative piece of theatrical storytelling, because it’s so easy to miss
just how clever, innovative and important it was. (Given my PhD itself was 3
years of arguing that Angels in America
is an important theatrical work I can’t help but be amused, and wonder if I
could now persuade Elliott to shout at my supervisor for me)

Honestly I think I'll go to my grave arguing about this damn horse.

Elliott’s work is big and risk taking, but the thing that
always guides it back is an innate instinct at her heart as a director for
stories. That she’s also one of the most conscientious and through directors
working today also helps. Too many productions seem a little ‘thrown together’
a ‘best fit’ or ‘will do’ which leaves glaring gaps obvious to, and ultimately off
putting and insulting to audiences. Not in Elliott’s work- no research stone, or
exploration of staging or performance seems unturned until it fits together.
The work always feels like it gives credit to the audience’s intelligence and
investment, and repays that with a sense of authenticity to the work.

Known for big storytelling, and big visuals- from Angels
crashing to Rosalie Craig floating for an entire performance, to yes, those
horses again. But what perhaps goes unnoticed in the bigger picture is that all
of Elliott’s work is at its heart about people, the human stories. And that’s
what makes her directing not just good, but something special. Anyone can throw
together big visuals with the right team, and the right budget. What distinguishes
Elliott’s work is that underneath all those big images is a story driving it.
Angels in America proved that once and for all, the biggest most sweeping
spiraling narrative you could ask for, writ large on the Lyttleton stage and
some full on Brechtian Epic staging, but what came through are the people. In
ten years, while the Angel crashing to the stage will be a memory, it’ll be how
you cried for Prior or the affinity you felt with Harper (or Louis….no just
me?) that you’ll remember. When I think
of Curious Incident I have a general memory of the slick, brilliantly realised
staging. But really, I think about Christopher and his story (ok and the dog).

And yes, it’s important that it’s a woman at the artistic
helm. Not just because we need more women visible in what is a male-dominated
industry. But we need more women visibility taking charge and running things. That
Elliott has used the status and freedom that being at the helm of the National
Theatre’s biggest hitters not just to pick and choose what she directs, but to
take more artistic charge with a production company, is exactly the steer the
industry needs. Elliott could well have gone on directing for the National, or
the Old Vic or frankly any other major theatre company who would a) be lucky to
have her b) probably bite her arm off to have her direct for them. But in
choosing to break out alone Elliott has taken back control, and is able to steer
not only her career but in a broader sense the theatrical landscape in
directions she chooses. And my goodness does it make a nice change to write ‘she’
in all these sentences.

This isn’t about quotas, or a numbers game. It is also about
getting women’s voices heard. And that is on stage and off. Off stage it’s
about the sense of hope a woman in charge brings, the idea that the person
running this show (in the literal and figurative sense) understands the
challenges women face- firstly to get a foothold in a room of noisy men, but
then as we get older and it gets harder to be heard, as we juggle children with
career, still playing catch up from before and often fade further into the
background. And it’s not about saying women will automatically give other women
opportunities (though that’s what men have been doing since the dawn of time)
it’s saying women will recognise those struggles. The women who end up working
with Elliott will still be the best of the best, because they’ll need to be, but
the difference is that elsewhere those women might have been overlooked.

And then there’s telling women’s stories. Putting women’s
stories at the forefront. That doesn’t mean telling only stories about women or
written by women (though obviously that is something we all need to keep pushing
for) but it means not pushing the women to the back in the stories we have.
Looking at how Elliott directed Angels we already see that- in a story that is
filled with men, the voices of the women still rang out strong and for once I
felt Harper’s story was as much at the centre. Now in Heisenberg we have a
woman in Simon Stephen’s play sharing equal footing with the male character-
that’s a woman’s story on stage. We aren’t asking for it to all be about women,
we just need stories, and directors who get that voice heard.

And a part of that of course is Company. That deserves its
own analysis just for existing. But the fact that people (men) are already
complaining that it won’t work, exactly proves why it’s a story begging to be
told. As a 33-year-old single woman, honestly the thought of Company told
through a woman’s lens makes me want to cry- because it feels like my voice is
being heard. Because I’ve heard all the things thrown at Bobby a hundred times,
and because as a musical theatre nerd I want a woman at the heart of something not
just to fall in love with the man. And because well who doesn’t cry a bit at the
thought of Rosalie Craig in anything right? But in all seriousness, maybe the
piece has started to age with Bobby as a man but put a woman’s voice at the
heart and it feels like that answer to a question I hadn’t thought to ask. And that’s
why, that’s why we need women like Marianne Elliott taking charge, making work.

And if your opening move involves re-writing Sondheim…well I
can’t wait to see where you go from there. So, Elliott & Harper, break a leg as
Heisenberg opens its doors. And from there…who knows but it looks like it’s
going to be something worth watching in every sense.